Pond mermaids and horsehair eels

The Suffolk clergyman who sent Chambers the local beliefs about animals also reported that horsehairs put into a spring would turn into eels, and one labourer swore he had proved it. Mermaids were believed to live in the ponds and ditches, and mothers used them to frighten small children away from the water. One child told him they were nasty things that hooked you into the water, and another claimed to have seen one, a great big thing like a fish, which the clergyman guessed was a pike.